Antarctica antics: Groping Santa, bloody brawls

Wellington: Late as it may sound but this Christmas, a groping Santa, a drunken car chase and a bloody punchout were the highlights of festivities in Antarctica.

Complaints of "inappropriate touching" were made against a Santa who had posed for photographs on a decorated snowmobile at the US McMurdo station, on the edge of the continent, a New Zealand newspaper reported on Wednesday.

That incident was followed by another in which a US staff member, suspected of drunken driving, raced along an icy road in a four-wheel-drive vehicle chased by a fire engine before she was intercepted, said Christchurch-based The Press newspaper, without citing sources.

SOZZLED SANTA: Complaints of 'inappropriate touching' were made against a Santa in Antarctica. (IBN)

McMurdo base is home to about 1,000 US scientists and staff during the summer months and is the largest community in Antarctica.

At a different US station at the South Pole a worker had to be flown out to a hospital in Christchurch, over 5000 km away, after his jaw was broken in a Christmas punchout with a fellow staff member, The Press said.

Both the bad Santa and rogue driver were summoned before their managers while the attacker in the South Pole brawl had been sacked, it said.